The Tenant

Following the success of Chinatown, The Tenant marked Roman Polanski’s return to psychological horror, completing his Apartment Trilogy alongside Repulsion and Rosemary’s Baby. Each film explores paranoia, isolation, and mental deterioration within claustrophobic spaces. Of the three, The Tenant is the most opaque and inaccessible, so much so that its initial reception was largely negative (Roger Ebert famously awarded it one star). Over time, it has found a cult following among cinephiles eager to dissect its ambiguities, but there’s a crucial distinction between a film having layers to analyze and being a truly effective work of cinema.

Polanski stars as Trelkovsky, a timid man who rents an apartment in Paris where the previous tenant attempted suicide. Initially unfazed by the building’s oppressive atmosphere and watchful neighbors, he soon becomes convinced they are manipulating him, driving him toward the same fate. His paranoia escalates into an identity crisis, blurring the boundaries between reality and delusion.

Despite the film’s psychological complexity, Trelkovsky’s passivity renders him frustratingly inert, making his descent less compelling than it should be. Unlike Rosemary’s Baby, which immerses viewers in its protagonist’s growing desperation, The Tenant keeps its audience at a distance, more interested in evoking discomfort than in fostering emotional investment.

Narratively, the film meanders. Isabelle Adjani’s character, introduced as a potential love interest, is given screen time but serves little narrative purpose. The decision to have French actors perform in English results in awkward dubbing that undermines immersion.

That said, The Tenant succeeds in its oppressive atmosphere. The apartment itself becomes an extension of Trelkovsky’s paranoia, claustrophobic, indifferent, and subtly menacing. The eerie stillness, unsettling neighborly behaviors, and Polanski’s meticulous framing create an air of unease that lingers beyond the film’s conclusion. Individual scenes are fantastic, and offers some clever touches from Polanski, like the grotesque and inexplicable discovery of the tooth in the wall, or the way Polanski frames people that are spying from the bathroom across the courtyard, motionless.

Thematically, The Tenant explores urban alienation, forced assimilation, and the societal rejection of nonconformity. Trelkovsky’s transformation into the previous tenant underscores the horror of losing oneself to external pressures. While these ideas are compelling, the film’s fragmented focus prevents them from fully resonating.

Ultimately, The Tenant is an ambitious but uneven psychological thriller. Where Rosemary’s Baby masterfully balances horror and psychological depth, The Tenant leans further into abstraction, emphasizing mood over narrative cohesion. It remains an intriguing, if flawed, work, more fascinating to analyze than to experience.

At a glance

3/5

Worth your time

Where to watch

🎟️Buy or rentNot available for streaming

Trailer

Play trailer

If you liked this

‹ ›

All the President's Men

★★★★★

Manila in the Claws of Light

★★★★★

Three Days of the Condor

★★★★★

Conclave

★★★★★

Sirāt

★★★★★